Where There Is Faith
by cmaddict
Summary: Post- "Gone". Casey searches out some explanation for her past and the evil she constantly sees. Strong C/E friendship, maybe pre-relationship. Oneshot.


**A/N: **I have no earthly idea where this story came from, but I hope you like it. I thought that "Gone" didn't completely resolve Casey's feelings. I am a Christian, and so this story reflects some of my personal beliefs about God and faith. Lyrics at the end are from 4Him's song "Where There Is Faith." Enjoy!

**Disclaimer**: Yeah, you know I don't own it. I've done so many of these, it's ridiculous.

* * *

Jason King was dead.

And it was my fault.

Those were the two thoughts running through my mind as I made my way back to my office after Elliot and Olivia arrested Doug Waverly and Nick Pratt. Those two smug, spoiled brats lawyered up immediately. It didn't matter. I'd convict them anyway. If I couldn't get them for murdering Jennifer Durning, I'd get them for Jason's murder. I had evidence coming out of my ears for that one.

But it didn't help. Nothing helped.

I was as guilty of his murder as Nick and Doug were. I pushed him to testify in front of the grand jury. I told him everything would be all right. Little did I know, everything would be far from all right.

The image of Jason's body, pale and bloated from being in the river for so long, would haunt me for the rest of my life. He could've had such a full life, but it was snuffed out by two spoiled kids who thought they could get away with rape. Jason was just caught in the middle. No one could expect a kid to get out of a situation like that, stuck between what he knew was right and his rich, persuasive cousin.

Somehow I found myself in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. I'd always loved that old place, with its tall towers and beautiful stained glass. When I was little, my father and I visited New York and went into the cathedral. I could still remember my father kneeling in front of the altar, saying a prayer for his friends killed in the war.

Against every rational bone in my body, I walked up those steps and pulled open the heavy wooden doors. They creaked a little, and the sound echoed through the hall. I held my breath, not wanting anyone else to be there.

Thank God for small miracles. I was alone in my misery. The last thing I wanted to do was explain to a priest that I'd caused the death of a teenage boy.

I'd almost forgotten what it was like to be in a church. My mom and dad were devout Catholics, and raised me to be one. But after I left for law school, God and church took a back seat to rationality and reason. Being an ADA for a sex crimes unit occasionally made me want to search out something to explain why these people were going through so much pain, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somehow, admitting that there was something higher than myself took away some of the control I worked so hard for. Admitting that things happened that I couldn't control made the pain worse.

I didn't want to admit that I couldn't handle everything on my own. It made me weak. In my job, you couldn't be weak.

But this was different. This was so far outside my control, I couldn't even figure out when I'd lost it.

Maybe that was why I turned to the church. For some unknown reason, the church always stood as a beacon for the hopeless and downtrodden. I'd heard the stories of those people who got screwed over by the church. But I'd also heard the stories of those who were helped by the church. So many victims talked to me about finding comfort in the hard wooden pews in front of that crucifix.

Until that day, I never really understood what they were talking about.

My steps echoed throughout the high rafters as I walked to the front. _Click, click, click_. Slow and steady. Normally, I walked quickly. But today, there was a weight on my shoulders that I couldn't lift.

Jesus Himself stared at me from the crucifix on the wall as I took a seat near the center of the sanctuary. His eyes were sad, looking down at me from the blood-covered cross. It was frightening. Like his eyes bored into my soul.

"God," I whispered from my seat. Even my soft voice echoed through the halls. "I feel so… so… _guilty_." That felt good. So I kept going.

"Why did you let this happen? Why did you let Jason die? He was a good kid. He didn't know what he was doing. Why didn't you stop it?

"I've heard all my life that you're all-powerful. So, if you really exist, you could've stopped it.

"You could've stopped everything I've seen in the past two years. You could've stopped little Maria from being kidnapped and used as porn for months. You could've stopped Denise Eldridge from beating her daughter to the point where Carrie had to kill her to stop it. You could've stopped that pedophile Abraham from impregnating twelve-year-old girls."

By then, tears streamed down my face. All the victims I'd seen for two years flashed before my eyes. The tears, the pain, the trauma. I relived all of it. Every single bit. The countless rape victims, molested children, murdered babies, mistreated elderly people – every face flashed in front of my eyes. My chest fell like someone was sitting on it.

Charlie. Then Charlie's face appeared in my mind's eye. His laugh, his twinkling blue eyes, the way he'd hold me at night. All my memories of him were marred by a mental disease he couldn't even control. Charlie was taken from me. For years I blamed God, but in that moment, all I could do was blame myself.

"I should've stopped it," I murmured. "I should've made him take his medication. I should've done more to protect him. I shouldn't have kicked him out, when all he needed was me."

Jesus' eyes just looked at me. I stared back. It was stupid trying to read the eyes of a painted sculpture, but I couldn't help it. It was so easy to get lost in those kind, loving, pain-filled eyes.

Some people, when they look at a statue of the Christ, believe that he's judging them, looking deep into their souls to nitpick everything that's wrong with them. I didn't get that impression in that moment, even though I knew there were things I should've been judged on. All I could see was love. And pain. In some strange, perhaps blasphemous, manner, it mirrored my own pain that I had suppressed for so long.

I remembered enough of my parents' lessons to know that good Christians believe that Jesus was how God stopped death and decay. Not in a direct manner, but in a roundabout way. Maybe Jesus was how God dealt with the evil I saw on a daily basis. Offering a chance to change. Offering a way to get right with God. Offering some semblance of salvation.

Suddenly I heard the front door creak open. Thinking it was just another parishioner, I didn't look up.

But then, out of my peripheral vision, I spotted a familiar shape kneel, cross himself, and slide into the seat next to me. Elliot Stabler looked at me and gave me a little half-smile.

"How'd you find me?" I whispered, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

"I got worried about you," he whispered back. Elliot and I had always had a friendly relationship, based on mutual respect. There might have even been a little bit of attraction there, particularly after his wife walked out on him. I know there was certainly attraction on my end of the issue.

"So now you're following me?"

"No." A slow grin spread across his face. "Well, maybe."

"That's what I thought."

"So what're you going to do about it?"

I shook my head and smiled wanly at him. "Today? Nothing. This hasn't exactly been my day. Or my case."

Elliot sighed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into his strong frame, grateful for the small gesture of comfort. "It's not your fault, Casey. What happened to Jason was not your fault."

"Then why do I feel so lousy about this one?"

"Because everything was taken out of your hands. Because innocent people got dragged into the web of two boys who never heard the word 'no'."

"Or maybe it's because there really is no God, no order in this world. Evil's allowed to run rampant, and the few good people here can't do a damn thing to stop it." By this point, I didn't even care about swearing in church. "We work eighteen hours a day, trying to stop the most depraved people in the world, and innocent people still get hurt. Every single day. I'm tired of it, Elliot. I'm tired of feeling helpless."

Elliot didn't say anything for a minute. "Casey," he said slowly, deliberately. "Do you want to know how I know there's a God?"

I lifted my head from his shoulder and just looked at him. He stared back at me, his blue eyes unreadable.

"It's because I see good things come out of the bad things. I see women who've been raped go back to their estranged families, or turn to God for support. I see you put away the guys for life, so they don't have a chance to do something again.

"Faith is believing in something you can't see, knowing that there's something good that could come out of pure evil. Faith is believing that the one that could heal every physical illness could also heal sickness of the heart. And where there is faith, there's a peace that passes all understanding, because there's someone bigger controlling everything that happens to us."

"I don't see it, Elliot."

He grinned at me. "Maybe you're not looking hard enough." Elliot squeezed my shoulder and stood up. "Let's take a walk."

Together we walked the few blocks to Central Park. The day was warm and sunny, the exact opposite of the day we pulled Jason's body out of the river.

"Why exactly are we here, Elliot?"

He grinned and led me to a bench. "You wanted to see the good in the world, right?"

I looked at him strangely. Who was he kidding?

"Look."

My eyes followed his finger to a pair of kids playing hopscotch down the sidewalk. The little girls laughed and giggled, completely unaware of anything going on around them. They didn't have a care in the world.

"Innocence is something good. Something that comes from God. It's all around us, even though we don't get to see it very often in what we do. But that doesn't mean it's not there. I see it in my kids, as crazy as they are. When Lizzie and Dickie were little, I could just tell that there was something bigger out there. In their laughs, in the way I held them."

I nodded my head, still not completely convinced. Elliot seemed to sense my hesitation, and he nudged my shoulders.

"Look to the left."

Giving him an annoyed glare, I complied. A young couple walked down the sidewalk hand-in-hand, laughing and enjoying each other's company. The young man's eyes never left his girlfriend, completely captivated by her.

"Love is something good. Love is why we live, why we can't live alone. Love sustains us when evil things happen. Saint John said that love is of God, because God is love, and showed his love through Christ Jesus."

"What happens when love fails?"

"True love doesn't fail."

"Didn't you love your wife?" His blue eyes darkened a little, and I immediately kicked myself mentally.

"Yeah, I did. But not as much as I should've. There were things we both did wrong, and I have to answer for that one day."

"I loved someone once."

"Who?"

"Charlie, my fiancé."

Elliot's eyes widened, surprised. "You were engaged?"

"Right after law school. He was smart, funny, caring."

"What happened?"

I sighed and ran a hand through my long strawberry-blonde hair. "He got sick. And I left." I didn't feel like telling him anything else, the reason I left. I didn't want to admit that I couldn't handle yet another issue beyond my control. And Elliot didn't push me, thankfully. In fact, he seemed to sense my discomfort.

"Casey, sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. Your fiancé, my wife, Jason. But faith says that there's a reason behind it, even if we don't understand it."

"I get it, but I still don't see it."

He smiled and tightened his grip on my shoulders. "Well, let me put it this way. If my wife hadn't left me, if your fiancé hadn't gotten sick, then we wouldn't be here today, together, would we?"

"Are you hitting on me, Detective?" I asked lightly, cocking my eyebrows at him.

Elliot just smiled and rubbed my shoulder. I stared at him in surprise, shocked that he didn't deny it. But he didn't confirm it either.

I sighed, not wanting to push him into some kind of awkward confession. "I'm not completely sure I buy this whole 'faith' thing. I know you, Elliot. I know you hate things being beyond your control as much as I do. And yet, you're sitting here, talking to me about faith, and -"

"Casey." My name from his lips stopped my angry rant, and I just stared at him. He stared back at me, his deep blue eyes boring into mine. And somehow - I have no idea how - but somehow I found comfort there. Elliot always had his faith, through his issues with Kathy, through being shot, through all the horror we saw day in and day out. For some reason, he always believed in a higher being, someone that controlled what happened in our seemingly meaningless lives and dictated what we instinctually knew was good and right.

Elliot was right. I just had to look harder, beyond all the evil I saw to the latent good in the world. It was the only way to survive this job. Faith - maybe not faith in God, but faith in something good and right and pure - was the only way to survive this job.

And there, on that park bench with Elliot's arm wrapped tight around my shoulders, I think I found that elusive thing called faith.

_Where there is faith  
There is a voice calling, "Keep walking.  
You're not alone in this world."  
Where there is faith  
There is a peace like a child sleeping  
Hope everlasting in He who is able to bear every burden  
To heal every hurt in my heart  
It is a wonderful, powerful place  
Where there is faith. _


End file.
